When John Matthew came up to the doors of Wrath’s study, he was about as relaxed as a golfer in a thunderstorm, and the sight of the king made the anxiety worse. The male was sitting behind his delicate desk, frown on his face, fingers drumming, stare locked on the phone like bad news had just come in. Again.
John tucked what was in his hand under his arm and knocked quietly on the jamb. Wrath didn’t look up. “What’s doing, son.”
John waited for the king to glance across the way, and when he did, John signed with care. Qhuinn got kicked out of his family.
“Yeah, and I heard the beat-down was from an honor guard courtesy of them.” Wrath leaned back in his chair, the slender bones of the thing squeaking. “That father of his… typical glymera.”
The tone suggested that was a compliment along the lines of asswipe.
He can’t stay at Blay’s forever, and he has nowhere to go.
The king shook his head. “Okay, I know where you’re going with this, and it’s a no. Even if this were a normal household, and it’s not, Qhuinn killed a trainee, and I don’t give a shit what you think Lash might have done to deserve it. I know you talked to Rhage and told him what happened, but not only is your boy out of the program, he’s going to be up on charges.” Wrath leaned to the side and looked around John. “You get Phury out of bed yet?”
John looked over his shoulder. Vishous was standing in the doorway.
The Brother nodded. “He’s getting dressed. So is Z. You sure you don’t want me to handle this?”
“The two of them were Lash’s teachers, and Z was a witness to the aftermath of what went down at the clinic. Lash’s parents want to talk to them and only them, and I promised that they’d be over to that house ASAP.”
“Okay. Keep me posted.”
The Brother took off, and Wrath put his elbows on the desk. “Look, John, I know Qhuinn’s a buddy of yours, and I do feel bad about a lot of his circumstances. I wish I were in a position to help him, but I’m not.”
John pushed, hoping he wouldn’t have to go to his last resort. What about Safe Place?
“The females there aren’t comfortable around males for good reason. Especially ones with violent histories.”
But he’s my friend. I can’t just sit back knowing he’s got no place to go, no job, no money-
“None of that is going to matter, John.” The words jail time hovered in the air.“You said it yourself. He took deadly force into what was your basic argument between two hotheaded guys. The right response was peeling you and Lash apart. It was not popping a knife and slicing his first cousin’s throat open. Did Lash come at you with a deadly weapon? No. Could you honestly say that the kid was going to kill you? No. It was an inappropriate use of force, and Lash’s parents are arguing assault with a deadly with intent to kill, and proximal murder under the old law.”
Proximal murder?
“The medical staff swear Lash had been resuscitated when that raid took place. His parents are assuming he doesn’t survive his capture by the lessers and are going with but-for causation. But for Qhuinn’s actions, Lash wouldn’t have been at the clinic and he wouldn’t have been abducted. Therefore, it’s proximal murder.”
But Lash worked there. So he could have been in the clinic at any rate that night.
“Except he wouldn’t have been in one of the beds as a patient, would he?” Wrath’s blunt fingers drummed on the delicate desk. “This shit is heavy-duty, John. Lash was the only son of his parents, both of whom are from founding families. It’s not going to go well for Qhuinn. That honor guard is the least of his problems at this point.”
In the silence that followed, John’s lungs got tight. He’d known all along that they were going to reach this impasse, that what he’d told Rhage wouldn’t go far enough to save his friend. And sure, he’d have done anything to avoid this, but he’d come prepared.
John went back to the double doors and closed them, then approached the desk. His hand shook as he took the file he had under his arm and placed his trump card on the king’s blotter.
“What’s this?”
With John’s stomach using his pelvic cradle as a bouncy castle, he slowly pushed his medical record toward the king.
Me. What you need to see is the first page.
Wrath frowned and picked up the magnifying glass he had to use to be able to read. Opening the folder, he bent down over the report that detailed the therapy session John had had at Havers’s. It was clear when the king got to the salient part, because the male’s heavy shoulders tightened under his black T-shirt.
Oh, God…, John thought, he was so going to throw up.
After a moment, the king closed the file and put the magnifying glass back down on the blotter. In silence, he took care to arrange the two things so they were side by side and positioned perfectly, the ivory handle of the magnifier in line with the bottom of the file.
When Wrath finally looked up, John did not move his eyes away, even though he felt as if every inch of him were dripping with filth. That was why Qhuinn did it. Lash read my file because he was working at Havers’s, and he was going to spill it to everyone. Everyone. So it was hardly your basic argument between hotheads.
Wrath popped up his sunglasses and rubbed his eyes. “Jesus… Christ. I can understand why you weren’t in a big hurry to come forward with this.” He shook his head. “John… I’m so sorry about what happ-”
John stomped his foot to bring the king’s head up. I’m not letting you know for any other reason than Qhuinn’s situation. I am not talking about it.
Then, in quick, jerky movements of his hands, because he had to get this shit over with, he signed, When Qhuinn took out the knife, Lash had me pinned to the wall in the shower and he was taking my pants down. My friend did what he did not just to keep Lash from talking-feel me? I… I froze and… I froze…
“Okay, son, it’s okay… you don’t have to go any further.”
John linked his arms around his body and tucked his shaky hands against his sides. Squeezing his eyes shut, he couldn’t bear to see Wrath’s face.
“John?” the king said after a moment. “Son, look at me.”
John could hardly manage to open his eyes. Wrath was so masculine, so powerful-the leader of the whole race. To admit to such a male that this shameful, violent thing had happened was nearly as bad as going through it in the first place.
Wrath tapped the file. “This changes everything.” The king reached over and picked up the phone. “Fritz? Hey, buddy. Listen, I want you to go pick Qhuinn up at Blaylock’s and bring him to me. Tell him it’s a command performance.”
As the phone was set back down, John’s eyes started to burn as if he were tearing up. In a panic, he grabbed his folder, wheeled around, and all but ran to the door.
“John? Son? Please don’t go yet.”
John didn’t stop. He just couldn’t. He shook his head, broke out of the study, and beat feet to his room. After he shut his door and locked it, he went to the bathroom, knelt in front of the toilet, and threw up.
Qhuinn felt like a heel as he stood over Blay’s sleeping form. The guy slept as he always had ever since he was a kid: head wrapped in a blanket, covers pulled up to below his nose. His huge body was a mountain rising off the flat plane of the bed, no longer the little molehill of a pretrans-but his position was still the same.
They had been through so much together… all the big firsts in life, from drinking to driving to smoking to the change to sex. There was nothing they didn’t know about each other, no inner thought that they hadn’t broached one way or another.
Well, that wasn’t entirely ture. He knew some things Blay wouldn’t admit.